After the Adam Bomb

By guest blogger, Robert Walter

atom bombIn the early morning predawn of August 6, 1945, a Boeing B-29 bomber named the Enola Gay revved its engines at the end of the airfield. It would need every inch of runway to get aloft with its enormous payload, an atomic bomb code-named Little Boy.

After 6 hours of flight the bomb bay doors opened and Little Boy began its descent towards the target, Hiroshima. The detonation leveled 70% of the buildings in Hiroshima over an area of roughly five square miles. About 70,000 people were killed and another 70,000 were injured that morning. Many continued to suffer the consequences of that blast for months and years to come.

The “Adam” Bomb

As destructive as the atomic blast was, it doesn’t compare to the devastation of another earlier event in human history. Only two lives, Adam’s and Eve’s, were affected that day, but the fallout from their disobedience in the Garden of Eden has affected every person in every generation since.

No one has escaped unscathed.

Pain has visited every woman in childbirth since that time. Work became toil. There was no mushroom cloud, but sin billowed up in an endless variety of self-centeredness, greed, depravity, and violence.

We don’t have to strain to see the impact of sin in our lives, yet some of the fallout from Adam and Eve’s disobedience remains largely unnoticed and unaddressed in Western Christianity. I’m referring to shame.

The Hiddenness of Shame

Before their sinful disobedience, the Bible records that “Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” Shame was foreign to Adam and Eve in the Garden before the Fall.

Unfortunately, shame remains a foreign concept to many Western pastors and teachers in the church today. This is not a personal criticism. It is a reflection of a blind spot we have inherited from generations of Western theologians before us.

In his wonderful new book, The Global Gospel, Werner Mischke notes that since the Bible grew out of a culture defined by the values of honor and shame, it is no surprise to find that the values of honor and shame feature prominently in the Bible. Yet that emphasis has largely remained hidden from the eyes of Westerners who are only conditioned to look for the pivotal values of guilt and forgiveness.

Werner Mischke illustrates this blind spot well by noting that the word shame is only listed in the index of two out of seven theological dictionaries published by Western scholars. This is a striking omission given that the word shame and its derivatives occurs 4–5 times as often in the New Testament compared to the word guilt and its derivatives.

The Epidemic of Shame

Shame may often be hidden from the eyes of Western theologians, but that doesn’t mean it is absent in the lives of Westerners. Not at all. Shame’s impact is broad and deep.

I first became aware of shame’s impact while working with survivors of sexual abuse during my years as a pastor. We are not surprised to learn that people who have been scarred by childhood sexual abuse suffer from shame – a gnawing sense that they don’t measure up and will never be worthy of love – but we may surprised to discover how wide this epidemic of shame has spread. Let’s look at some other examples of populations who are struggling with shame:

  1. The Unemployed
    Richard Wilton was a successful real estate developer who dedicated his work to God’s glory. However, when the economy tanked in 2008 he took it on the chin. Properties that once secured loans worth millions now were worth only dimes on the dollar. Unable to refinance, the bank took the opportunity to repossess everything. Richard not only lost his collateral, but he also lost his house and his sense of identity with it. You may like to think we are not defined by our net worth, but it’s tough to shake the idea that you are a loser when you are 55 and no one will hire you.
  2. The Disabled
    9501297964_67e1e8f62d_b
    Tammy Thompson, a blind woman, shares how she’s struggled with her disability: I’ve spent many years on a mission to cancel out my disability by frantically stacking up achievements, hoping that someday I would find that final, magic accomplishment which would absolve me of the sin of being disabled. … I guess I thought that if I were successful enough, I’d escape from the ‘less than’ feeling that quivers in my guts.”
  3. The Depressed
    Teaching and preaching on the wonders of God’s love actually makes Jean Sorrento feel worse. “What’s wrong with me?!” she asks, “I should feel better.” She has confessed every sin she can think of but still can’t shake her shame or the depression that comes with it. Eventually she concludes she is spiritually dead and without hope.

Just as guilt affects every one of Adam and Eve’s descendants, so does shame. No one is immune. So far I’ve identified as many as 40 populations like the three above who are prone to struggling with shame: the divorced, the obese, the adopted, and the addicted are just a few of these. At some point shame touches us all.

PrescriptionsCure for the Epidemic

Prescriptions for shame tend to follow the pattern of prescriptions for guilt. However, failure to see the shame problem as a unique problem prevents us from seeing the unique solution.

Matt was born out of wedlock to parents who were not ready to marry or take on the responsibility of raising a child. In the heat of an argument his father tells Matt, “You ruined my life.” Matt learns beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is a bastard and a burden. This identity mars his outlook throughout his life.  How does the repentance and forgiveness formula fit? While Matt can confess many sins of commission and omission, how does he confess the sin of being born out of wedlock?

If we don’t have anything but forgiveness to offer, we offer a deficient Gospel. But the Gospel itself is not deficient. Jesus took both our guilt and shame on the cross.

Two Arms of the Cross

The author of Hebrews writes this about Jesus, “For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (12:2)

In an honor and shame culture, the cross – designed to maximize both pain and shame – was the worst punishment. Yet Jesus willingly and joyfully took on our shame in order that we might share in his honor at the right hand of the Father.

So often we reduce the Gospel to a work of forgiveness only. When we do, we are guilty of preaching a one-armed cross. God’s forgiveness is clearly the only solution for our problem of guilt, but forgiveness has little to say to shame.

Fortunately, the cross has two arms. With one we are embraced by God’s forgiveness removing our guilt; with the other we are embraced by His love removing our shame.


Forgiven feel badFor more on the healing of shame get the free eBook by Robert Walter, If I’ve Been Forgiven, Why Do I Still Feel Bad?

Robert Walter is the training director for Leader Source, an organization that works with Christian leaders around the world to help them rise up the next generation of healthy leaders.

Interview on the “Deeper Waters” podcast about The Global Gospel

Interview with Werner MischkeNick Peters has a series of podcasts in which he interviews Christian leaders and authors. Nick’s blog is called “Deeper Waters.”

I was recently interviewed by Nick concerning my book The Global Gospel. You can listen to the interview / podcast here.

I am grateful for Nick’s enthusiasm for my book, and his willingness to conduct an interview with me.

Top 12 ideas from The Global Gospel

The_Global_Gospel.305Here is a list of top 12 concepts from The Global Gospel:
  1. Western theology has a blind spot about honor/shame; this is true in part because in systematic theology textbooks, guilt is an often-referred-to matter of theological inquiry, while shame is virtually ignored as a matter of theological inquiry. This is true despite the fact that in the Bible, the word shame and it’s derivatives is more than twice as common than the word guilt and its derivatives.
  2. Guilt is more likely to lead to healing behavior whereas shame is more likely to lead to hurtful behavior; this is why a gospel message that focuses exclusively on sin and guilt is by default less transformational than a gospel message that also addresses sin and shame.
  3. Honor/shame dynamics are inherent to the gospel; the gospel is already contextualized for honor/shame cultures.
  4. Western theology is influenced by Western values of guilt and individualism; therefore we tend to articulate the gospel in exclusively legal terms for individuals. Western theology is not culturally neutral; it is shaped in part by Western values.
  5. The Bible’s own purity language can be used to articulate the gospel as cleansing for defilement in addition to forgiveness for sin. We may call this “the gospel of purity.” See article at this page.
  6. The following is a form of Western colonialism: To teach the Bible in the Majority World in a way that reinforces Western values of innocence/guilt and individualism while ignoring Majority World values of honor/shame and collectivism which are also found in Scripture.
  7. Western theology has given the world a presentation of the gospel unwittingly influenced by its own Western values. In so doing, the culture of the Bible and the culture of the recipient peoples have often both been marginalized, resulting in unnecessary obstacles to faith in Christ.
  8. Honor-status reversal is a motif of the Bible—from Genesis to Revelation.
  9. While some Westerners may recognize honor/shame values in the non-Western world, they almost always seen these values as unethical. Thus, they throw out the baby with the bathwater, not realizing that there is a beautiful side of honor/shame in the Bible which is truly bright and glorious.
  10. There are five motivations for mission: 1) Theocentric motivation: The glory of God. Anthropocentric motivations—two negative and two positive. The negative: 1) Hell, and 2) Lostness. The positive: 1) Personal honor, and 2) People-group honor.
  11. God actually shares his glory with persons and peoples; at the end of the Story, while Christ is being worshiped by all peoples and nations, the persons and peoples who comprise the family of God are also glorified in the process.
  12. One of the ways to biblically understand salvation is this: Salvation is the relocation of one’s honor (identity) into the regal Person of Christ, his kingdom, and his regal family the church. This is why “the honor is for your who believe” (1 Peter 2:7). This sets the believer free from the sinful behaviors of honor competition to live ethically superior lives, reflecting the life of Jesus.

All of these points are thoroughly based on the broad panorama of Scripture as well as the work of a large number of scholars—while incorporating more than 450 footnotes.

Learn more about The Global Gospel here.
Purchase The Global Gospel from Amazon: Kindle or hardcover.

How shame fuels violence—get two free chapters from The Global Gospel

Blood and honorWith the horrific events in Paris, many are wondering WHY? Even from a distance, the culture clashes we are dealing with are gut-wrenching and terrifying. How are we to respond?

The connection between honor/shame and violence, war,  and bloodshed is something I explore extensively in my book, The Global Gospel. I pull no punches concerning the truly dark and demonic side of honor and shame as it is explained in the Bible—and represented in world history and current events. (I also write in-depth on the gospel of Jesus as the cure.)

Cover.200I am offering a free two-chapter excerpt from The Global Gospel. These two short chapters will help you understand the connection between shame and violence. To download this excerpt, click here.

The two chapters are:

Chapter 5: Does It Hurt or Does It Heal? This chapter deals with the fact that guilt is more likely to lead to healing behavior, whereas shame is more likely to lead to hurtful behavior. Plus … What does this imply for Christian ministry?  /  A missing piece in Reformed theology?  / Shame is experienced in different ways  /  The need to cure both guilt and shame

Chapter 6: The Pathology of Shame in Our World: This chapter explores the incredibly significant role of shame in world history and current events …  Shame as fuel for genocide in Nazi Germany  /  Shame as fuel for terrorism in the Muslim world  /  Honor-based violence in the family unit  /  Is all shame bad?  /  Nathanson’s Compass of Shame—four poles—1) Attack self, 2) Attack other, 3) Avoidance, 4) Withdrawal.

These two chapters are not all I have in The Global Gospel about the powerful link between shame and bloodshed—along with how the Bible addresses this sinful pathology. In fact, I estimate it is only about 20 percent of what I have to say on the subject. But this two-chapter excerpt will get you started.

To download your free two-chapter excerpt from The Global Gospel, click here.

To learn more about The Global Gospel, download other free resources, or discover various purchase options, visit the book website: Click here.

Thoughts about the attack on the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris, by Roland Muller

Paris-e1420651846958I was glued to the TV for a couple hours last night, watching CNN’s reporting on the terrifying attack at the office of Charlie Hebdo in Paris. No mention was made by any reporter or commentator concerning the dynamics of honor and shame being at the root of this attack. But many who are familiar with the differences between Western and Eastern cultures know that honor/shame dynamics were at the root of what happened yesterday. I am grateful to author/missionary Roland Muller for writing his thoughts about what happened. Roland has given his permission to share his thoughts here concerning this tragedy.

I was really saddened by this violence. “Oh no, not again,” I thought. My prayers go out to all those affected by the tragic violence in Paris. While it is certainly understandable for both Muslims and Christians to be outraged when their most deeply held beliefs are ridiculed in the press, violence is never an acceptable response. The longing to have one’s shame covered and honor restored can only ultimately be experienced through the gospel. It is only in knowing and following Jesus Christ—who absorbed the shame and violence of the cross, and then rose in exalted victory over death, sin, shame (Philippians 2:5–11)—that this universal longing of the soul can be satisfied. —Werner Mischke


By Roland Muller

Once again the Western world has reacted with shock to Muslim violence. Those in the West believe they are protecting freedom of speech, those in the Muslim world believe they and their religion are victims of ridicule and shame.

Many of you know I have written a great deal on these topics, including the book Honor and Shame: Unlocking the Door, in 2001. In this book I point out that much of the West views life through the paradigm of right versus wrong. We have our rights, and must protect them. If what we do is not wrong (against the law) then we have a right to our actions. In the East, however, many people view life through the paradigm of honor versus shame. We have our honor, and we must protect it, even with our lives. And we must avoid shame, and if shame is brought on us by others, it is perfectly OK to defend our honor. (See my chapter distilled for Mission Frontiers.)

It seems that many in the West still haven’t caught on. Eastern-thinking people will defend their honor. One of the worst things you can do to them is bring dishonor or ridicule on them. Muslims in particular uphold the belief that “with blood I can wash my shame away” (Abu Tammam). So when they are ridiculed in the Western press, especially through cartoons that stereotype and ridicule them, they feel justified in reacting violently. No amount of clamoring about freedom of speech will change this. This only makes Muslims more determined to bring Islam to Europe, so that the ridiculing and bullying will stop.

If I published a cartoon that criticizes a well known person without any truth behind it, perhaps making him out to be a pedophile, I should expect to be sued for liable. So if a Muslim feels robbed of his honor, the honor of his religion and the honor of his prophet by someone’s libelous actions, how does he get the shame removed and honor restored?

We do not think about this in our Western society. Winning a court case doesn’t restore a reputation, which may be forever damaged. Islam’s answer is: this is so important it is worthy of a death sentence carried out by the one shamed.

So when the French satirical weekly “Charlie Hebdo” published their cartoons, they committed an error considered in some parts of the world as worthy of the death penalty. Unfortunately for them, people with that perspective lived in their own country, and in their own city. Many Muslims just shrug and say: “They brought it on themselves.”

The problem in the West is that we often do not make the effort to honor the difference between critique and ridicule. It is much easier to draw a racist cartoon than it is to research and write a scholarly critique. And rather than taking time to challenge Muslims with well-reasoned arguments and articles, we resort to ridicule.

Lampooning Christians and Muslims with cartoons is currently within the accepted limits of freedom of speech in the West. But how would society have responded if the people at Charlie Hebdo were to ridicule homosexuals in this way? So why did they feel it was OK to ridicule Muslims?

Despite writing extensive articles and books about Islam and Muslims, I have not experienced any backlash because I strive to treat Muslims in a respectful way. I try to speak to them as I would my best friend. I desire that Muslims wrestle with issues without feeling threatened that I am judging them or ridiculing them.

Treating all men with respect is foundational to our Christian heritage. Now, when Christianity is crumbling in Europe and ridicule is on the rise toward both Muslims and Bible-believing Christians, let us reflect and teach Muslims to embrace Jesus’ teaching to turn the other cheek—to bless and be blessed when people persecute us. Muslims have never been taught this. They understand an eye for and eye, and a tooth for a tooth, and the concept of revenge.

May we, as followers of Christ, demonstrate the love and kindness Jesus taught his followers to have.

Thank you, Roland, for your perspective. –Werner


To better understand the honor/shame mindset, and how the gospel speaks to it …

Watch: This new (2015) 5-minute video: <http://youtu.be/r89-QVkq8_8>
Read:

The Global Gospel—now available

Cover.200The Global Gospel is now available. You can get the book at The Global Gospel website—click here. Or you can get the book at Amazon.com. Get the hardcover edition here, or the Kindle edition here.

The Global Gospel describes how the honor/shame dynamics common to the Bible and many Majority World societies can be used to contextualize the gospel of Christ so it will be more widely understood and received.

With more than 85 diagrams and charts that contribute to a comprehensive examination of honor/shame in the Bible, The Global Gospel is a call for theological dialog and missional creativity rooted in the ancient paths of Scripture and the relational honor of our King.

Two special learning opportunities

In the past year, there has been a surge of interest related to the topic of honor/shame in the Bible and what it means for cross-cultural ministry. Here are two important ways you can learn more:

  1. Read a variety of views about honor/shame in Mission Frontiers magazine. The Global Gospel guides the theme (honor/shame) for the current issue of Mission Frontiers (Jan/Feb 2015). You can order bulk quantities here.
  2. Participate in an online workshop series through Missio Nexus, which has scheduled me for four webinars in February based on The Global Gospel.

 

The Global Gospel will be available soon!

Cover.200I am pleased to announce that my forthcoming book will be available soon: THE GLOBAL GOSPEL: Achieving Missional Impact in Our Multicultural World. The book is scheduled to ship on Friday, December 19th from the printer—Quad Graphics in Fairfield, Pennsylvania.

We at Mission ONE are enthused and excited! I am so grateful that this long journey of writing and designing this 352-page book—with more than 450 citations and more than 85 diagrams and charts—is finally coming to fruition.

Check out the many endorsements of the book at globalgospelbook.org.

You’ll be led on a journey beyond a legal framework of the gospelto one that is “legal plus regal.” How you communicate the gospel and live out the gospel—locally and globally—may well be transformed.

The Global Gospel is a call for theological dialog and missional creativity rooted in the ancient paths of Scripture and the relational honor of our King. You and your team will be challenged to reconfigure what you do and expand what you believe is possible in our Lord’s Great Commission.

The Global Gospel describes how the honor/shame dynamics common to the Bible and many Majority World societies can be used to contextualize the gospel of Christ so it will be more widely understood and received.

Cost and availability

The first-edition hardcover copy will retail for $24.99. But it is still available for the pre-order price of $14.99 with free shipping to U.S. addresses. To learn more, visit GlobalGospelBook.org/store.

By God’s grace, the book will also be available at Amazon.com—no later than January 1, 2015. Check out the Kindle version here. Check out the hardcover edition here.

Momentum is building

Partly as the result of The Global Gospel, there has been a surge of interest related to the topic of honor/shame in the Bible and what it means for cross-cultural ministry. We have sold more than 1500 copies of The Global Gospel through pre-order sales. We are so grateful to Robby Butler of The Mission Network for his expertise promoting the book effectively in the missions community. Plus:

  • Last July I wrote a paper about honor/shame for a conference I attended which had the theme of honor/shame—sponsored by the International Orality Network.
  • The Global Gospel guides the theme (honor/shame) for the next issue of Mission Frontiers (Jan/Feb 2015).
  • Missio Nexus has scheduled me for four webinars in February based on The Global Gospel.
  • An article I have written about “levels of awareness of honor/shame dynamics in cross-cultural ministry”—based on material in The Global Gospel—will be featured in the April 2015 issue of Evangelical Missions Quarterly.
  • My article about honor-status reversal as a motif of Scripture (also based on material in The Global Gospel) will be the anchor article in the next issue of Orality Journal.

Praise the Lord

All of this momentum for The Global Gospel along with the support of many colleagues in the missions community causes me to rejoice and give praise to our great God and Savior.

I am reminded of Paul’s great confession in Romans 1:16—“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

Check out the many endorsements for, and the free excerpts from, The Global Gospel at globalgospelbook.org.

These two graphics describe my forthcoming book “The Global Gospel”

honor shame circle
The honor/shame wheel—nine dynamics of honor and shame in the Bible, plus one honor/shame motif at the axis of the wheel. It’s all thoroughly explained in the forthcoming book, THE GLOBAL GOSPEL: Achieving Missional Impact in Our Multicultural World, by Werner Mischke.

Chapter-page graph copy1

The manuscript for The Global Gospel is currently at the editing/design/proofing company in Wheaton, IL—a company called Livingstone Corp. Lord-willing, the book will be released this Fall, hopefully October. If you would like to see the manuscript before the book is released please write to me: werner@mission1.org

Blood and honor

Blood and honorThe media is currently focused on two huge news stories of great violence and bloodshed. The first is the gruesome war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinians. The second story involves Ukraine, Russia, and the downing of the Malaysia Flight 17, causing the death of 298 civilians. I have watched my share of news reports—and can’t help but think of the role of  blood and honor in both stories.

Blood and honor in the news? Well, journalists do not actually use the words blood and honor to talk about the events. But I believe blood and honor is just below the surface. To explain what I mean, we will explore what the Bible says about blood and honor. In this post, we will examine:

  1. how blood and honor are essentially about family honor,
  2. that blood can be both the result and cause of honor-based violence, and
  3. how the blood and honor of Jesus Christ is a completely different kind of catalyst—offering the possibility of peace instead of violence.

“Blood and honor” is essentially about family or kinship

In my forthcoming book, The Global Gospel, one of the things I do is explain nine different honor/shame dynamics in the societies of the ancient biblical world. One of these dynamics is referred to as “name/kinship/blood.” Basically, this refers to family honor.

  • Think of Medieval England and the profound importance of a family’s “coat of arms.” What’s that about? It’s about the honor of one’s distinctive family name.
  • Think of the saying, “Blood is thicker than water.” What’s that about? It’s the idea that relationships through family blood exceed all others in importance.
  • What about protecting your family reputation and name. What’s that about? Family honor, of course.
  • Add the word kinship to the mix and you have family honor spread across a large extended bloodline or clan of people—almost like an ethnic group. This is where family overlaps with God’s great promise to Abraham—that through his descendents, “all the families [that is, kinship groups] of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:3).

Now many aspects of family honor are good, reflecting the way God made us to care for one another in our families.

However, because of devastating effects of sin on the human race, other aspects of family honor—or the dynamic of “name/kinship/blood” can result in great evil. You will see below that honor-based violence is often related to blood. You’ll see that blood is often both the result and the cause of honor competition and honor-based violence.

Blood as the RESULT of honor competition

The Bible’s first reference to blood is in Genesis when Cain killed his brother Abel. Cain felt jealous over the fact that “the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard” (Gen 4:4–5). In jealousy and revenge—what I call “honor competition”—Cain killed Abel. The murder of Cain is symbolized by blood.

And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand” (Gen 4:10–11).

What is the meaning of “your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground”? God is saying, This is murder!—the horrible injustice of killing an innocent man.

This, of course, has become a pattern for all of humanity; honor competition results in violence. Blood is the result of honor competition.

Blood as the CAUSE of honor competition

In 2 Samuel 4, the account is given of two men, Rechab and Banaah, who murdered Ish-bosheth, son of Jonathan the son of Saul (2 Sam 4:4–6). Rechab and Banal thought they could cover up their murder of Ish-bosheth by telling David they were doing him a favor:

And they said to the king, “Here is the head of Ish-bosheth, the son of Saul, your enemy, who sought your life. The Lord has avenged my lord the king this day on Saul and on his offspring” (2 Sam 4:8).

Rechab and Banal sorely miscalculated:

But David answered Rechab and Baanah his brother, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, “As the Lord lives, who has redeemed my life out of every adversity, when one told me, ‘Behold, Saul is dead,’ and thought he was bringing good news, I seized him and killed him at Ziklag, which was the reward I gave him for his news. How much more, when wicked men have killed a righteous man in his own house on his bed, shall I not now require his blood at your hand and destroy you from the earth?” (2 Sam 4:9–11).

David immediately commanded that Rechab and Banaah be executed by “his young men.” In fact, “they killed them and cut off their hands and feet and hanged them beside the pool at Hebron” (2 Sam 4:12). What a gruesome result to their miscalculation.

The point here is that Rechab and Banaah thought that David would agree with the default culture of … avenging the blood of enemies by killing their offspring. As a man of God, David would have none of it. But it points to the fact that the default culture at the time recognized that family blood was a justifiable catalyst for honor-based violence; family-versus-family revenge was indeed culturally acceptable.

Blood represents family honor

Jerome Neyrey writes: [R]elatives who press for the advantage of family members are simply doing their duty to the kinship group, which is an honorable thing. Hence solidarity and loyalty among family members go without saying. Blood replicates the honor of the family.[1]

“Blood replicates the honor of the family.” Yes, and anyone familiar with a blood feud will agree. The definition of a blood feud is: “a lengthy conflict between families involving a cycle of retaliatory killings or injury.”[2] The cycle of violence is fueled by honor competition.[3]

This is why in honor/shame societies, ethics is generally trumped by honor—usually the honor of the family, family blood. The rule of law is practically irrelevant:

In Sicily too, according to the writer Leonardo Sciascia, himself Sicilian, the family is the state, a be-all-and-end-all in itself. To any Sicilian, “the exact definition of his rights and duties will be that of the family.” The mafia, the Camorra of Naples, the Corsicans, the people in Provence and in Spain, share with the Arabs self-regulatory group concepts wholly opposed to the workings of the state with norms legally defined and voluntarily obeyed. Equality under the law, that central constitutional pillar, cannot be reconciled with codes of shame and honor.[4]

Violence of family against family, tribe against tribe, nation against nation—is rampant throughout the world. An Internet search of “blood and honor” or “blood feud” brings out the ugly prevalence of this global scourge. Whether it is the Hatfields and the McCoys … or Sunni versus Shiite … Arian race against Jewish race … Chinese against Japanese … white race versus any others, it is, in essence, all honor-based violence fueled by blood.

The blood of Christ is different, hallelujah!

There is a huge contrast between the impact of blood and honor in the kingdom of this world and the blood of Christ in the kingdom of God. We have noted that blood can be both the result and cause of honor competition; we have noted that the cycle of blood feuds can be seemingly endless. But consider these verses which show that the blood of Christ is an entirely different kind of catalyst:

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility … that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility (Eph 2:13–16, emphasis mine).

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water (Heb 10:19–22, emphasis mine).

Blood and honor in this world’s kingdom fuels family-against-family violence (blood feuds and vendettas)—but the blood and honor of Christ brings healing between families and kinship groups.

Blood and honor in this world’s kingdom is a catalyst for ethnic hatred and genocide—but the blood and honor of Christ is a catalyst for the acceptance, even the celebration of all ethnic groups and peoples.

Blood and honor in this world’s kingdom opens humanity to the life-killing spirit of jealousy, evil, murder, genocide, the devil—whereas the “blood of Jesus…opened for us” access to the conscience-cleansing Holy Spirit and life-giving presence of God—a new and living way!

This is our hope. This is the expectation and desire we have in Christ for a world so deeply scarred by violence and bloodshed. This is but one facet of an amazing multifaceted diamond we call “the good news”—the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.


1. Jerome Neyrey: Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), p. 53.
2. Definition from: New Oxford American Dictionary 3rd edition © 2010 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Referenced by Mac OSX 10.8.2.
3. “A blood feud is a cycle of retaliatory violence, with the relatives of someone who has been killed or otherwise wronged or dishonored seeking vengeance by killing or otherwise physically punishing the culprits or their relatives. Historically, the word vendetta has been used to mean a blood feud.” See “Famous Blood Fueds,” accessed 17 June 2013, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feud#Famous_blood_feuds>.
4. David Pryce-Jones, The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1989, 2009), p. 38.

Free new resource—“The Gospel of Purity”

Gospel of purityI’ve got a new article available as a free download. It’s called, “The Gospel of Purity for Oral Learners.” Here’s what this article is all about.

In the Old and New Testament, impurity and uncleanness relegated people as lower-status social ‘outsiders’ in varying levels of shame. The greater the uncleanness, defilement or pollution, the deeper the shame.

Likewise, cleanness, sanctification or holiness identified people as higher-status social ‘insiders’ in varying levels of honor. The greater the cleanness, purity, even holiness, the higher the honor. The Mosaic laws of Leviticus defined for the Hebrew people purity codes and the cycle of sanctification.

Though strange to Western/secular sensibilities, these purity codes are crucial to understanding both God’s covenant with the Hebrews, as well as the radical nature of Christ’s ministry. Jesus transcended Old Testament laws of ritual cleansing—offering his cure for people in shame due to moral failure, disease, disability, disfiguration, or death. The New Testament frequently uses “purity language” to describe what God has done in Christ for humanity.

The gospel is much more than a cure for sin/guilt; it is also a cure for sin as uncleanness/shame. The Western theological default toward judicial language in presenting the gospel should be supplemented by purity language for better contextualization.

The gospel of purity will better resonate with peoples in oral and honor/shame cultures. Many of these peoples are unreached in the Buddhist, Hindu or Muslim blocs—all of whom practice their own distinct cleansing rituals and are honor/shame-oriented in their cultural values. Therefore, developing an awareness of the gospel of purity is a strategic issue.

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